


Ghosts of Fire

by BWJournal



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Drama, Drr, F/M, MSR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 11:10:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20290492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BWJournal/pseuds/BWJournal
Summary: She put them in the past, but life has inevitably put them in their path.Arlene Skinner has to face a reckoning.





	Ghosts of Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Billie1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Billie1/gifts).

> The prompt for this work was a Fluff/Humor/Romance/Smut: "Explain Skinner's wedding ring. Mitch said his character married his assistant, Arlene. When and how has it changed him at work? Do people know? How long have they been together?" but it was also based on "Kitten" which I find as a super sad and poignant look into Skinner's life.
> 
> So... instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole... I let it go where it wanted to go. Hope that you guys like it.

The last of the light hitting the wisps of tall grass has always been her favorite part of driving back home at the end of the day. The way they sway to the breeze, calmly, fresh, even as the humidity still clings to the air. And the fireflies, yes, those… as they start to claim their reign from the sun.

Maybe coming back to Tennessee was a shock once, maybe. Now, it just feels like that one life she once craved, and led, is nothing but a mirage and a dream. Or was it a nightmare? She can’t make up her mind sometimes. That life got buried in the reality of now, in the day to day of simple tasks, of simple people, of worries that leave her mind as she closes the door of her storefront after a day of serving tea and scones in a town that doesn’t even have a Starbucks.

She’s made some friends in the last eleven years, reconnected with old ones too, but her own cautiousness doesn’t really allow her to let anyone in anyone fully, even after all this time. She’s seen too much, she’s heard too much, she’s feared too much. She trusts… too little.

Especially since she knows that they’re back in their lives. Again.

Especially... since now he spends much more time away than in the home that he used to come back to every Friday night.

As she turned into the driveway to the farmhouse, the last that she thought she’d find on her driveway was that SUV. Her breath quickened when she saw the red headed woman sitting on the steps to her front porch. Her heart pounded, hurtfully, fed by the myriad of scenarios provided by a brain too well trained into tragedies: hers, his, theirs. Other’s.

He hasn’t been back to their home in more than two months. One assignment after another kept him chained to the Hoover, going back rather late to an empty apartment that he refuses to call his own. Utilitary, lacking personality. Just an upgrade from a hotel. He hadn’t called in over a week. Texts had gone unanswered. And that wasn’t  _ all  _ that strange given his work... but this time… it just felt a little bit different.

They’d never discussed who would be the one to deliver the worst of news. Would it be some guy that she’d never met? Would she just get a phone call? Or is this it? Would she learn that Walter Skinner was dead by the words of Dana Scully?

The woman rose to her feet the moment that she climbed out of the car; she looked just the right side of tired, but still gorgeous. Older, perhaps more enigmatic. And then she remembers just how so many doubts plagued her mind about this woman. Walter’s inability to ever say no to the agent. The way he worded his memories about Mulder and Scully always had a special tone of sweetness and forlorn longing when it came to the woman. It didn’t escape her how much they looked alike… but for better or worse, that’s all that was similar about them. She was still wearing that air to her that spoke of some inherent superiority, even if she tried hard to mask it. It didn’t matter that she wore jeans and a sweater. Dana Scully would always be Dana Scully. And well, she… she was just Arlene.

Arlene. Sometimes, Arlene Skinner.

“Hi,” Scully started, and it almost sounded self-conscious.

“Is this it?” Arlene asked, hiding nervous, angry hands in her pockets, trying to swallow the lump stuck in her throat. “Where is he?”

“He-- He’s okay.” Scully shuffled on her feet and she felt the grip loosen around her chest. “I would have called, but I realized that I actually never got your number... and I’m really not supposed to be here.”

Arlene nodded, breathing air back into her lungs in shaky bursts as she started toward her door, containing tears that threatened to spill out of nervousness.

“There was a reason for that,” she said as she reached for the bolt on the door, not meeting the woman’s eyes, before she could break her resolve. “I left DC and the FBI. We were supposed to leave that life. You’re not welcome here.”

She turned to her, to find a face dressed in empathy and she hates her for that. “Where is he?”

“He went out of his way to help a friend. Things didn’t turn out as planned,” Dana attempted as an explanation. “He’s in observation in a hospital--” 

“Is this your fault?” Arlene could feel her anger reaching a boiling point, one that she promised herself to never feel again. Because he had promised too. This was over. No matter if they came back. It was Walter first, it was her before anyone.

“No, but I can see why that would be your first thought,” Scully said. Solemnly, embarrassed, guilty.

When it came to matters of the FBI, she knew it too well. He’ll still try to play it as if being in danger wasn’t a life changing situation. Because Walter Skinner had been through too many of those. At some point, they lose the newness and the shock value. At some point, he’d become jaded, or used this as a protection from the unbearable. The pain he knew he was inflicting by not letting go of a mission that seemed never ending.

Her fist clenched, her words spilled like a mad bull that she was struggling to contain. “Is he going to be okay?“

“That is—That’s why I came. I’m scared for him,” Scully confessed.

Arlene looked out at the sky, now dark and still.

“Come on in, I guess.”

//////

**1997**

Arlene had gone to the Hoover as the ultimate aspiration that came to her by accident. With a relatively short climb from one federal contractor job to another within the state, her best friend dared her to apply for a job at the FBI.

“What’s the worst that can happen? You get a call, you go in. You get selected and then work with the big boys,” Anna had said downing her third Southern Comfort. “You don’t get no call, you continue putting up with the bullshit from Darren whenever he figures out he can’t put together yet another project that could bring the company down. Business as usual.”

She got the call. She aced the interview. She passed the background test. She didn’t even give it a thought. Did she want to be an assistant all of her life? Probably not, but this was a long way from her almost hermit life in Dayton, Tennessee.

When her mother died, and her brother decided that farm life wasn’t for him, it was far easier to sell some of the land and keep the family home, for whatever purpose it might have in the future. An investment? A bed & breakfast? A retirement home? Maybe she’d build herself a family and come back to the prairies that saw her grow up.

She boarded it up, made a deal with her old boyfriend to keep an eye on the place and keep the weeds in check, and then it was off to a new life.

When she first started at the Assistant Director’s office, she was fast introduced to all of the stories. Just as every single assistant had heard them from the previous, everywhere that the office gossip could reach.

It was the kind of commentary with an infinite gamut of possibilities.  _ The curse of Mulder and Scully _ —One bad omen that basically rubbed off on anyone that had to deal with them. Whether it was in the means of extra paperwork to be filed and deciphered, or to actually be shot and die because of them… the FBI personnel had had plenty of casualties provoked by the two agents. The tragedy of their ways was made light by the romanticism that some put on it, whether it be making bets on  _ how, when, where _ they’d finally done _ it _ , or in the most cruel ways, in very particular commentary about their personalities, and just how much they were about to… lose it. People cringed at his ways and lamented her for following his dogged pursuits. While some called it pathetic and others called it platonic, the one sentiment was that no one really wanted to stick around them for too long.

She didn’t care. As long she didn’t end up getting hurt...

So much for wishful thinking.

As the years went by, she would see them going in and out of the office. Sometimes there was shouting, doors stormed, accusations, violent matches. She always tried to keep her distance. Aside from the pair, all the other agents under AD Skinner’s watchful eye were a walk in the park. Boring, even… which sometimes made her think that this attachment that her boss had to his most conflictive children had to be something that came out of it being the only excitement in his life.

She even had moments where she felt she was also falling for the spooky spell. She knew that the line that her boss walked was one that masked itself with diplomacy. Or was it lack of resolution, fear to really stick to one side over the other? It all served up to the enigma that was Walter Skinner.

Fear, of fear itself.

She knew he was divorced, and that in some way or another, that had ended really badly. Something about a hooker, many years ago. Her boss, the buttoned-up vet, he had his dark secrets, too.

What sounded like an office job with a security clearance, a nice walk around the nation’s capital, and a pretty apartment where she could finally get decent water pressure… evolved into restless nights. 

It all started with her getting to the office at least two hours before her official hours… just because she knew that he liked to get in that early. With the exception of Thursdays, that is. Those days he’d spend a few more hours punching whomever was up for it at the gym. But aside from that, she’d never seen Walter Skinner manhandle anyone, other than to defuse confrontations. And there weren’t that many, unless a certain agent was involved.

Mulder brought the worst out of everyone. And everyone looking for Mulder also brought the worst for all of them. Like the day they almost lost Walter Skinner. Perhaps that was the day she realized she cared more than she was aware. That was when she saw how much the stray children would do for their sometimes wayward defender. And then there was the time where after everything was said and done, she’d seen the mask he’d chosen to wear come back, ironclad, cruel under certain light, hopeless under other. Confusing. Heartbreaking.

The enigma crept up on her, on the silence of their days but the kind smiles of others. She found herself leering at him when he wasn’t looking and left his door open. Sideway glances to not be too obvious, but she could have sworn back then that he always knew. That she saw him… that she  _ really _ saw him.

There’s this way about how he carries himself; his posture that is regal even when he relaxes. He would pour over files, reading on hours on end, and even when tired… he would always seem as if there were no weaknesses to him. But there were, there were many. You just had to know where to look.

She learned them all…

And she did nothing.

The years passed, and even when their conversations grew, and he learned more about her, life seemed like an afterthought when it came to him. Unless any of that life meant to fight for Mulder and Scully’s ideals, fight for their faults, for their missions, for their lives. It didn’t matter that Mulder left, and two more agents came to take over the least comprehended department in the whole Bureau. John Doggett and Monica Reyes just inherited the madness and the curse. Even when in their tragedies they also seemed to have something of their own. 

Between life and death, Mulder and Scully found love and a son, John and Monica shared an unspoken electricity that permeated walls, and Walter Skinner had… nothing.

She came into the office that Monday, and according to the rumors going around, she fully expected him to be on the verge of a breakdown. She expected the finality of knowing Mulder would die, she expected that Walter Skinner would die in his own way. But the joke was on them; instead, the whole of the FBI was in a frenzy. 

The two most unwanted had gone on the run. Doggett had been about ready to short fuse… Monica—well, she was as flabbergasted as ever… and so, everyone had caught the curse of Mulder and Scully.

The days passed and the inquiries came and went and the door to his office remained closed more than usual.

The weeks went on and his demeanor shifted to a sullen one in between fights with John.

Two months later, he muttered his way into the office and by mistake, the door was left ajar. She’d turned her head and saw him pacing around, his body crossing the slim field of view, breaking the rays of light that streamed from his opened windows. He was restless, he looked tired. He seemed frustrated.

It was killing her that he was once again bearing the brunt of the fall out. It wasn’t fair. No one ever thought of what it would cost him, no one thought about what his own sacrifice would mean. And yet, there she was, a peripheric witness to the silent life sentence he’d picked, trapped between chasing windmills and feigning indifference.

And then he’d stopped pacing, and instead …she’d heard a strangled sob.

He didn’t hear her come in. He didn’t hear her come near him. He didn’t hear her say she was sorry.

For everything.

She didn’t believe it when Walter Skinner turned to her, and from his seat, he hugged her waist and just wept. In a stream of tears that spoke of frustration and fear, of years of pent up rage for the many things he had to swallow for the better good. Tears because he had vowed to be a good man, in a promise that was never clear of how far it would go, how much he’d have to sacrifice.

She hugged him back, as tight as she could against her body, and let him break the armor that she’d admired from afar. She didn’t want to become the cliché. She knew how inappropriate it would be, but her heart was pounding in a way that it had never. With a pain that it had never. For a reason that it had never.

So, she knelt and held his face in between her hands. She dried his tears with her lips, breaking the chasm, and transforming it as she kissed his lips. It had been mere moments until his brain had caught up, and his hands slowly crawled up her spine, his fingers getting lost in her hair, pulling her to him. Fiercely. Needy. Breathlessly. She’d gotten lost in his smell, in the way his lips fit on hers; she’d straddled him, breathed his warm breath, caressed his stubble as they regained control over something that she knew might be the end of her job, perhaps even her career. But he was looking into her eyes in a way that no one had ever, perhaps catching in the reflection of the way that she saw him. The image that was by now branded in her, the unbreakable tenderness of a feeling she couldn’t name.

That was the day it all ended.

That was the day she’d become an inherent part of a life she didn’t know she was signing up for.

//////

It wasn’t so much the silence that bothered her, but more likely the things that she knew the woman before her was probably willingly not saying, or sworn not to say. 

It bothered her that Dana Scully knew things about Walter Skinner that she would never know. Because that’s the promise she made to him. To never dig too much, lest she put herself in danger, again.

Sort of an addendum to their wedding vows.

“I’d offer you tea, but that’s all I’ve drank all day,” she said absentmindedly as she pulled two tumblers from her cabinet.

Scully stood awkwardly, taking in the room, but this wasn’t her first time here. Things have moved and transformed since that late winter morning in 2010 when  _ they _ were last in this room. 

New paint, one less wall, some different furniture. Less of her mother’s heirlooms. No matter how good Walter is with his carpentry skills, there’s just so much that he can do to fix the damages of bullets. Of sprays of them. Of old carpet soaked in blood. In her blood. His. Theirs.

Arlene pulled the bottle of Jack that Walter had picked up over Christmas and motioned her guest to sit by the kitchen table.

“Neat?” she asked, not quite waiting for an answer, and pouring a generous amount of amber in the woman’s glass and hers. For a moment, Scully’s blues were lost in the liquid placidly swirling in place; a soft nod as she grabbed on to the glass, finally meeting her own greens.

They both took a sip. 

Silence.

“Did he ever tell you about his platoon in Vietnam?” Scully began.

“There’s a variety of stories that he haphazardly mentions…” and he had; as stray comments in the middle of a conversation, as references to a place or a memory, and just when she thought that he could dig-in deeper, completely and unbound… the doors would shut. “I know some about the killings, some stories about regrets. Some about brotherhood. Most of them about brotherhood-- the responsibility he felt over each of those men. The ones he lost, the ones he left behind… the ones that returned but really never came back.”

That’s as far as she’d gotten… and in perspective, she knew that was a whole lot. But she knew -- she  _ knew _ \-- there was more. She sometimes wondered if it was just a better idea to leave those waters undisturbed. Let the mud and sadness settle deep in the murky darkness of judgement and pain. In the profound disillusionment of betrayal, the one that he refused to accept, even when he knew as deeply that that war was not the heroic duty for which he’d signed up.

“I suppose carrying that guilt makes do for not having a family anymore,” She said, taking another swig with a stoicism that maybe took Scully aback as she met her eyes for a brief moment, catching the unsaid frustration that her comment revealed. The frustration that she’d come to accept. 

“You’re his family,” Scully said in tentative affirmation.

“I came late in life. Many things don’t apply to me and-- I’ve learned to live with that notion.” And she had, she really had. Despite the unfairness. Despite the way it cut her when she felt the silences coming. She knew what it was about. She knew he was protecting her from grief, from the terror of his own nightmares, from the sadness that seeped through every part of him since. It was the only part he could barely control, in a world that kept trying to tear down any kind of force field he ever built.

“Is that what this is about? Vietnam?”

“There was a man, John James. Maybe he’s mentioned him. He went by  _ kitten _ .” Scully continued.. “He didn’t do so well while he was part of the squadron, and was court-martialed when he came back… he ended up in a mental institution. He claimed that Walter-- He played an instrumental part in his demise.”

Guilt, of course, the favorite of Walter Skinner’s addictions.

“And… Did he?”

“Walter did what was the honorable, the compassionate thing to do, the correct thing to do. Even when those aren’t always the most popular options.” Her eyes sought hers, trying to connect the meaning unsaid.  _ Your husband is a good man. Your husband did what he had to do. _ Whatever that was. She didn’t need the reassurances, because she’d seen first hand what he was. Because she’d seen first hand just how much the fact that he was a good man made him the scapegoat of so many unknown battles. Being a good man was the only thing that kept him alive some days, and perhaps the constant pursuit of good was the one thing that will keep him from succumbing to his own self hatred. 

“He’s probably going to call you and say that he’s been put into an operation--” Scully explained, but she didn’t need the actual lie she’ll be fed with at some point. 

“That’s what he said last time he called.” Arlene cut her off and Scully took a deep breath herself, perhaps growing tired of the confrontation that brewed beneath.

“He’s going to say that the operation will go on for a long time, but that’s just to justify that he needs time to recover.” Scully continued, nonetheless. “When he comes back, he’ll say that he got hurt during it, that is not a big deal, just a flesh wound. But the truth is that he had a wood spear go through his side when he fell into a trap that was designed to hunt him.”

That lands like a careful bat swing to the chest.

“He could have died from it,” Scully completed. 

“How does-- how did…” Arlene poured herself another drink and slammed it back with shaky hands.

What Scully told her is not something she expected to hear. The thirst of revenge isn’t something that she hasn’t felt; she has. To put a bullseye on that someone that hurts you so much that you forget rationality, that the very thing that makes you a sane person just goes out the window and horrors become justifiable. That level of detachment that allows you to think of the other as an animal that needs to be put down, to keep another person from feeling what you’ve felt. She almost considered putting one on the woman before her, once. But she can’t really fathom a target on the person that she loves the most, even when she can understand that the man that has shared her bed is also one that owns a gun, one that has killed many… one that has killed for her.

What would happen if she acted on her now dormant instincts? She once justified it enough to go through the motions of the  _ what ifs? _ , but she put a lid on it. One that Walter forced on her. In heated discussions where all of her doubts and fears had come out to haunt them. Because many had been justified, because many had come true.

//////

Her hand fit perfectly into his. Even as the years passed. Even when she’d decided to leave the job.

Each held their court, even if it was laughable that they did still. And life was “normal” -- as much as that could be said about working in the FBI while the country lived in a state of continuous paranoia, wars, elevated threat levels, and suspicious envelopes. Each day a maddening swinging pendulum between the tedious and the outrageous. 

She’d found a job at the Department of Commerce, something comfortable and easy. They had time to plan for dinners and weekend trips to the beach. But she’d never gone back to Dayton. It was as if there was this silent agreement where they were bound to discover new places together, and not talk about their pasts too much, least they discover ghosts that would break the spell.

But she knew there were many hidden away in his coffers. And hers-- well, hers revolved around rejection, loss and an utter lack of finding purpose to her life at times.

She was no hero. Like he was-- like he is. And whatever he saw in her, in the time they’d been together, it still seemed like a mystery. No matter how many times he’d attempted to explain his inability to see his life without her now.

One evening, they’d spotted the crimson sunset hues as another day died while they’d walked down the south lawn of Dumberton Oaks. Spring was making its’ last strides and the night air was still a mix of fresh relief and warm anticipation, with a dim soundtrack provided by the breeze rustling leaves and some of the early cicadas preparing for upcoming strident symphonies.

The ephemeral twinkles of the fireflies hid underneath trees, in the few reminders that magic still existed even when so close to D.C. That there was more to life than a city where lives began and ended. Where conspiracies larger than life scurried under blood-soaked streets. It was only fitting that the sky matched those red warnings, in a mix of life and death.

“There are many more of those down in Dayton,” She’d said, pointing to the fireflies.

“Is that right?” He’d said, pulling on her hand and guiding them toward the canopy of trees.

“Yeah, and the breeze makes the trees sway, and the air smells sweet.” They’d stopped under a big Katsura tree, with branches that hung low and gnarly and inviting, like sinister arms. “Just like hot cakes and syrup.”

He’d grabbed her waist and lifted her up to sit on the low, sturdy branch. Their eyes meeting without effort. “You smell like hot cakes and syrup.”

“I do not.” She’d laughed, feigning offense.

“Maybe we should correct that,” he’d teased, grabbing her wrist and placing an open kiss to the delicate skin. She’d shivered and punched him on the arm, playfully. “Okay, no punching, maybe I like you just the way you are.”

He’d stepped closer to her. Her legs trapped his torso, easily, as they’d done many times.

“Yes, Mr. Skinner, walk that back.” She’d kissed his plump lips, spotting the taste of coffee they’d enjoyed before starting their walk. His hands held on to her waist, as if they’d always belonged there. Warm and soft. Grounding.

“Well, Mrs. Skinner, what will you do about it?” He’d said against her lips, with a smirk.

“To begin with, I’m not Mrs. Skinner...” She’d replied between snickers.

He kissed her again. This time more intense, more overwhelming, with a thirst that she’d navigated before and left her breathless. The type of kiss that lit her insides on fire and made her feel like molten gold, spilling on every surface of her life. 

He pulled away, breathless, leaning against her just enough to look deep into her eyes, as much as the last rays of light allowed. She didn’t need to see it all, memory served them well when it came to memorizing every inch of themselves. 

“Maybe that’s the thing that needs correcting,” He’d said, his eyes searching hers. And just like that, it had made sense. It had all made sense.

His hand grabbing hers as they both trembled, made sense. The air disappearing from her lungs, made sense. The ring that slipped easily around her finger, with an unfamiliar weight but a welcome feel, made sense.

As she looked at the gemstone in the dim light that surrounded them, she could have sworn that their new life was being shaped under the fireflies that reflected in the planes of the diamond. Abstract, unique, secret.

“Will you?” He’d asked, as if there was any chance of any other answer.

She’d lift her eyes to his and found the smallest hint of fear in features that softened as her own telltale smile spilled from her lips, the same way that tears painted hot paths from her lashes across her cheeks.

“I will,” she whispered, closing the distance again. “I will,” she sealed, branding her emotions on his lips. 

/////

“Maybe you should have stayed back,” she finally said. “In hiding, just like you said you wanted.”

“I’ve said the same thing to myself many times.” It’s Scully the one that took the sad sip this time. “I don’t blame you from blaming us. Hating us is justified…”

Arlene wasn’t naive. She knew Scully knew, but this moment of reckoning wasn’t one that she expected to happen in such civil ways.

“I don’t expect you to ever forgive us.” Scully finally said, meeting her eyes, and the suggestion of that plea that she’s actually voicing is what does her.

“How dare you?!?” She shouted, angrily, grabbing her glass tumbler and slamming it against the table. “How can you think that there can be forgiveness to what you caused? How can YOU -- especially YOU -- even bring it up?”

Tears spilled bitterly down her face as she kept her eyes trained on the woman before her. Her eyes also filled with tears, and she wondered if they were made of fear or pain.

“We never meant to--” Scully started with a strangled voice. “I never thought it would unravel like it did.”

“But it did!” Arlene’s lips trembled as she tried to voice even words through painful memories assaulting her. And she wants to believe her; that they never truly thought that those people had followed them as they tried to escape. That they truly believed that it was a safe idea to run to an unknown place, to a friend’s home. A friend that had put his life on the line many times for the sake of their cause and their madness. They thought they could escape their nightmare by hiding in their dream. 

But they were wrong.

/////

They’d danced under the stars on a hot night on the lawn of her mother’s house. They’d called no one, they told no one. They had no one to owe a party or a celebration other than themselves. So, they swayed enveloped in the smell of the sweet lilacs he’d perched in her mane. In a world where not a soul could be spotted, he’d let her force him to be free. They’d make love in the middle of the day, on the grass, as they finished lazy picnics and smeared infatuation over themselves. They’d enjoy soft, cool sheets that would turn hot and drenched in their love. He’d lose count of the amount of times they’d say “I love you”, in words, in touches, smiles, in looks that seemed larger than any emotion he’d ever felt.

He’d caress the ring on her hand, a sparkly band she had trouble admitting she loved. She’d caress his and he would hear her say that the gold matched his heart.

For the longest time… she thought, maybe the curse was a lie.

But it wasn’t.

By the time they went back to Washington, life was waiting for them.

John Doggett had turned in his resignation. Walter would return home full of sighs and clenched fists. And then one night he received a call, and just like that Monica was also …gone.

The X-Files… were closed. With the stroke of a pen, she saw his heart contract and shatter as if he had allowed the ultimate betrayal.

He’d failed them. The ghosts that she’d thought gone, they were back, circling his brain, infusing their lives again with anguish and questions.

As the years went by, he hid that sorrow well. Resolute to build a life made of pieces that were theirs, or memories that were detached from cataclysms, but full of promise. And so the normalcy began to fall into place; they’d decided to go back to Dayton, to their safe haven, to make it work in a house that now was theirs and not her mom’s, to believe in the isolation of the world in brief moments stolen from practicalities... just in time for  _ them _ to reappear.

Every fiber of her trembled as Walter came to their “new” home early that week. He’d traveled impromptu to aid on a case, he’d said. A case involving Mulder and Scully. They were back. Mulder had been in danger and, while it didn’t mean that they were back in the Bureau, his  _ true _ family had returned. 

She could see it in that rare gleam in his eyes as the months went by; they were alive and he had tasted a brief flavor of the life that once had been theirs. His eyes were filled with that light that had been lost for some time no matter how happy they were, no matter that they had now begun to create a family of their own.

/////

It had been a lazy Saturday afternoon, but maybe just for her, as she negotiated her now constant lack of energy. He’d occupied himself chopping wood and sorting through his tools as he entertained on yet another experiment with his new lathe. He’d taken on the tasks of renewing their home with a hunger that was almost endearing, shipping materials through the week and sending her lists after lists to deliver to the local hardware store.

When she could finally confirm that she wasn’t insane, that it wasn’t all in her head, that they’d finally succeeded, he couldn’t stop blabbering about how he was going to build their child’s cradle. A whole nursery matching the craftsman style of the rest of their home. He’d presented her with different designs of spindles and wood colors, wondering about the right height for a child that would surely want to break out their custom made artsy pen. It made her smile. His excitement, the possibilities. It was all brand new.

The buzz of Walter’s phone vibrating against the wood of their coffee table startled her out of her book. She knew that lately he had enforced a strict policy of no work calls during the weekend, with only a few exceptions.

So when she picked up the phone to see the word “High Priority” flash across the screen... something inside her had stirred. Fitting, she’d thought, as his face had transformed just enough when he picked up the call. Her heart contracted in a way that felt familiar, and not welcomed.

“Yeah, I think that would be alright,” he said to the person on the other end. “Just wait until the sun comes down, drive up without headlights. You can stay here overnight.”

Her face fell. There could be only a handful of people he would offer shelter. 

He hung up the call and handed the phone back to her, taking off his gloves and protective goggles. He’d taken a deep breath, and looked at her. He knew how she felt about this without even asking. 

“It will be only through the night. They’ll leave first thing in the morning. It will be alright.”

She’d taken a deep breath, the smell of sawdust saturating her senses, and he’d come to her and hugged her swollen form.

“It will be alright.” He repeated. “I can’t just leave them out there. They need our help.”

They need our help. 

They came promptly at six pm. 

Snow had begun falling earlier, coating the field around their house. The weather service had announced it would continue through the night. She stood back as Walter received them, taking in what felt like a dizzying ride all of a sudden. It was their voices at first as they exchanged warm greetings and loud slaps on their backs. They brought back memories, and she found herself taken aback with the familiar feeling. She hadn't seen John Doggett in years, let alone Mulder and Scully. It was discombobulating to see them together, as if they’d stepped back in time. 

Their faces showed worry hiding under relief as Walter ushered them through the back door and they shed coats in the mud room. She stood by their kitchen table, fidgeting as she feigned business in finishing the dinner they’d put together for their guests, their expressions transforming as they spotted her abdomen. Smiles, true smiles of surprise as they exchanged looks and even playful punches delivered on Walter’s mass.

“Well, Skinman, look at you!” Mulder teased. “We leave you to your own devices and look what happens!”

Doggett had given him a bear hug and Scully had gingerly come to her with a warm smile spread across her lips.

“Congratulations!” She’d said, eyes darting between her abdomen and her face. “How far along?”

“Almost six months.”

The night flew by in stories and eager mouths devouring the food. It seemed like they hadn’t had a decent meal in days, by the sound of their recollection of the last few days. 

Mulder and Scully had come back to the US after being abroad for a while. Doggett had summoned them for help a few months back. He’d been doing his own thing, he’d said, without much explanation… but if experience served her right, it sounded like he had joined the CIA.

Maybe it was good that he didn’t share that much, she’d thought then. In hindsight, maybe she should have asked that they came clean with how much risk they’d put themselves into.

But it was the laughs that he heard Walter bust loud and clean, the camaraderie of old friends, the love he saw in them that made her forget the hesitance. That made her forget that 6th sense.

She’d been so naive.

When they went to bed, she’d let Walter hug her to sleep. His broad body big enough to engulf her still, cocooning in warmth even in their drafty room. She was safe, she repeated to herself as she drifted. 

It was the faint creak of floorboards that woke her. When she turned to her husband, he was already in alert mode, deftly putting on his shirt and gun in hand. He’d met her eyes and that mirth was gone. Now fear occupied them. 

His phone buzzed in his hand, a text message that he read letting out a shaky breath.

“What’s happening?” She whispered.

“Whatever you hear, do not come down the stairs. Don’t get close to the windows.” The click as he pulled back and loaded the chamber, releasing the safety of his semi-automatic sounded louder in her head than it probably did in the silence of their room. “It will be alright. We just have to take care of something.”

But it wasn’t alright.

Doggett and Mulder had peaked in his room and signaled toward the end of the hall and the staircase, disappearing into the darkness. Walter had kissed her and walked out without looking back. Scully had taken post on their door jamb, with her own gun out. She could see it in the woman’s face. It wasn’t alright.

She’d struggle over the years after that night to forget the sounds that came. To try to disassociate their meaning, their outcome. To take away their significance and what terror it had brought.

No one ever tells you how inconspicuous is the sound of bullets going through wood in a place surrounded by snow. It’s a dull sound without consequence, if it were just that. If bodies fall in the snow, the softness of the white blanket pads their fall. It’s only a dim crunch. But it’s the screams of blunt pain that break the chasm. It was Mulder screaming John’s name. And Walter screaming Mulder’s. It was Scully’s eyes pleading her silently to let her run downstairs, in harried steps when she sprinted down the hall not able to contain herself in keeping the post she’d taken. Arlene had understood and at the very least she knew Walter was alive.

But for how long? 

Would they make it out?

And then there was absolute silence. And she was filled with dread.

She should have known better than to move, because the next thing she felt was the hand around her mouth and the sickening smell of whiskey and sweat. The man walked her downstairs, insensitive to her whimpers or condition. Immutable to her wail when she saw Doggett’s body bleeding out on their living room floor.

There was so much blood. A trail of it followed to the front porch; drops staining the white coat, scrapes and drag marks down the steps. Then she figured it out, she was the bargaining chip. It was her life - and their son’s - in exchange for whomever they’d caught in their exchange.

They stood in the snow in silence, her bare feet growing numb in the cold slush, her heart pounding fiercely, deafening.

Mulder was the first to come out of hiding, bloodied, but training his gun on them. 

Then Walter, his gun in his left hand, pointed and ready as blood seeped from his right shoulder. 

Then Scully, holding her gun to a woman’s head. 

They were all hurt. 

How had they ended up in this moment in time? Who were they? Did it matter?

“Let her go, or I’ll shoot yours,” The man gritted. The southern accent was thick. 

“Only if you promise to go back the way you came and let it be,” Mulder replied. “You already killed the man you were after.”

“Be that as it may, I can’t have you come looking for me, either,” He’d replied, grabbing onto her more forcefully, the gun now bruising her temple.

“We won’t. Just let her go, and we’ll call it a night,” Walter said; his coolness surprising her. He looked at Scully, nodding at her, and she started walking the woman toward them. She stopped just a couple of feet away, trading glances with her, as she felt her tears spread ice down her cheeks.

“Come on. I let her go, you let her go. This ends here.”

The unknown woman in front of her struggled in Scully’s grasp. Gravely wounded, she let out a whimper that coerced the man holding her. He’d pushed her to the ground and rushed to his cohort. Scully had stepped away from the woman and rushed to her, the couple of attackers scrambling to get away when a shot rang out and the woman fell… her blood staining the snow immediately.

What followed gets blurrier with time; Scully’s body as she tried to shelter her, the distorted look of pain as a bullet hit her mass, and then the sensation as the same bullet pierced her own skin, burning her soul as it spread pain from her abdomen, destroying her life, her dreams, the future as they’d foolishly imagined.

She remembers men screaming, and more shots. She remembers how the light suddenly turned even bluer than it was. She remembers Scully’s bloodied hands on her, in a scramble of movements as she dragged her back to the house. The woman’s screams of pain, or were they her own? The sight as she lay on her porch’s floor, as she looked to her side and she heard John’s last words as he passed.

“He won’t come back.” 

“I made sure of it.”

“I’m sorry.”

/////

“Why are you really here?” Arlene said after a while.

“When we found Walter, when the dust settled, we spoke of these sacrifices. And he… despite how much at odds we’ve been in the last few months…” Scully studied her hands, in shallow breaths, in an expression of shame. “I-- We forget just how much we owe him, even if it at times his allegiances weren’t crystal clear.”

She knew that they weren’t the only ones back in her husband’s life. But at times it was rather a question of which side of the coin she’d rather have.

“He’s a good man, who didn’t ask to be put in our path,” Scully continued, acknowledging the even longer list of menial sacrifices that related to his prideful work life. “We are so sorry about how much it has cost him, has cost you, even if we cherish--”

“Why now? Why are you telling me this?” Arlene interjects, getting up and pacing the room. “Do you think I don’t know him? Do you think I don’t know how it weighs on him that his life has once again become a tangle of dread? That he shamefully looks away when he knows that I know he lies to protect me? There aren’t enough apologies for what you’ve caused.”

She leans against the counter behind her, drying up the tears she’d spilled and reigning back the anger.

“I made my peace with it. The lives lost along the way… I’ve made my peace with that. I made my peace with the fact that I may lose Walter one day to this unnamed danger looming on us. To this search. At this point, I’m just counting the days we’ve survived it,” She claimed, resigned. “There are days that I wish I knew this truth that you seek. There are others where I just don’t know that it would make a difference.”

Scully took a deep breath; she’s a woman resigned as well. They have more in common than before, following men that masked their pain. “I wish I could tell you that feeling will end sometime.” 

“He had enough with his own baggage. We had enough.” And the distinct sadness in the face of the woman across her tells her that that there won’t be a happy ending to this. “I’m afraid of the ghosts he keeps to himself.” 

The redhead nodded, and the silence that follows speaks of understanding. 

“Why did you come here, Scully?”

“That night… I think a part of us died that night… in all of us, along with John and your son.” The words pierced her, the pain still fresh despite the years. “Many times, I silently prayed that I could put the pieces back together, for you, for us, even when Walter claims there aren’t regrets.”

“He-- He’s made of another mettle.” Arlene claimed, solemnly. “One that’s far better than mine.”

Scully closed the distance between them, placing a soft hand on her arm that Arlene doesn’t bat back.

“I think the fact that you’re here, with him, might attest to the contrary.” Arlene fights back tears as she hears the woman’s voice, the notion that haunts her at times… why is she still with him? “Not everyone needs to go out into battle, tempting fate, to be the strong one.”

She didn’t think that she needed that acknowledgment to chip away at her resentment.

Scully grabbed the phone resting on the counter and handed it to Arlene, motioning to unlock it and grabbing it back from her and dialing. After a few moments, a ring broke the silence.

“Call me sometime,” She said handing back the phone to her. “You’re part of this family, too.”

Scully drank the last of her drink and served her with a tight lipped smile before she headed out. The sound of the car ignition and the headlights bouncing in a brief dance on the walls, telling her that her visitor was gone.

Then there was silence. And her thoughts. And her memories. And a new found set of feelings she never thought she’d unbox.

The phone rang in her hand as she understood what her purpose was. She swiped to answer.

“Hello, dear husband. I’ve missed you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to KyinHI for always being the fantabulous beta that you are!


End file.
